Trump assassination attempt won’t change presidential election

Prediction markets haven’t budged from where they stood before Sunday’s assassination attempt. Polymarket and PredictIt, two of the leading sites for betting on the presidential election, show the odds for Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are unchanged. 

On Sunday, a man with a rifle in the vicinity of Trump while he was golfing at his club in West Palm Beach, Florida, was caught. Secret Service agents noticed a gun barrel sticking out of the bushes about 400 yards away from where Trump was and fired at the man, who fled in a car. He was later arrested and charged with two gun crimes. 

It’s worth noting that prediction markets are not the same as election polling data, which surveys respondents about whom they plan to vote for in the upcoming election. Prediction markets are essentially betting odds based on how much a bettor is willing to pay to earn a $1 payout for either a Harris win or a Trump win. One can think of it as an options contract for a presidential victory. 

Despite Sunday’s thwarted assassination attempt against Trump, the second one since July, bettors didn’t change their views on the outcome of the election. Polymarket’s odds show Harris as a slight favorite with a 50% chance of becoming president to Trump’s 49%. The betting site has had those odds for Harris and Trump since Sept. 12.

Meanwhile, PredictIt prices Harris slightly higher, with a bettor needing to wager 57 cents to win $1. Trump remains priced at 47 cents, where he has been for the last week. 

A spokesperson for PredictIt said it does not comment on “trader reasoning” as a matter of policy. The Trump campaign and Polymarket did not respond to a request for comment. 

It’s not just prediction markets that see the outcome of the presidential race as unchanged. A top economist from UBS also expected there to be no major effect on the state of the race. 

“Generally speaking political violence does not tend to influence election outcomes,” UBS Global Wealth Management chief economist Paul Donovan told CNBC. 

In the immediate aftermath of the first assassination attempt against Trump, which happened on July 13 during a campaign rally in Butler, Penn., there was some movement in prediction markets. The price of a Trump win jumped from 60 cents on July 12 to 69 cents on July 15, according to PredictIt’s odds.

However, there were a few key differences between the July assassination attempt and yesterday’s: President Joe Biden was still the Democratic nominee and Trump himself was injured after a bullet grazed his ear, while Secret Service agents intervened Sunday before he or anyone else was hurt. 

For Donovan, the second assassination attempt would do little to shift focus from what matters most to markets: each candidate’s policy proposals and the likelihood they would get elected. “I don’t think this situation changes any of that at this stage,” Donovan said.